The University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar will conduct an international research project entitled "Circulating Knowledges - Connecting academic and traditional music knowledge in Colombia and Brazil" from 2020 to 2023. The project's collaborative partners are the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia and the Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia in Santo Amaro, Brazil. The project is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD) and is a part of the DAAD's "Subject-Specific Partnerships with Universities in Developing Countries" program. The objective of the project is to enhance and expand teaching in the partner countries, as well as to establish structures and develop capacities at the partner universities.
"Circulating Knowledges" promotes the transfer of knowledge between the academic world and traditional music cultures in Colombia and Brazil. The aim is to examine the intangible cultural heritage in the form of music and performance traditions in Colombia and Brazil in their historical connection to African traditions, document their evolution, and convey them within their respective local contexts.
The cooperative research project "Circulating Knowledges" aims to document, convey, and explore the intangible cultural heritage in the form of music and performance traditions in Colombia and Brazil in their historical connection to African traditions and their evolution. In particular, it aims to promote the transfer of knowledge between the academic world and traditional music cultures in Colombia and Brazil. The musicological focus is on the African elements in the music of South America. New formats will be used to convert traditional music knowledge from the South Pacific and Caribbean region of Colombia and the Brazilian Recôncavo da Bahia into academic formats and languages. Through the collaborative development of field-research-based video learning modules, teachers and students will have the opportunity to stand in lively exchange with carriers of culture and their cultural practice on site.
As part of the DAAD project, numerous symposia, seminars, and excursions as well as the establishment and expansion of archives are also planned. By connecting academic knowledge and traditional music cultures, the project enables a synergistic circulation of various knowledge within and outside of science.
The objective of this project is to achieve a sustainable improvement and expansion of teaching, as well as the formation of structure and the development of capacity at the partner universities in the participating countries. The aim is to support local cultural carriers in their efforts to determine and preserve their own cultural heritage through capacity building throughout the course of the project. A crucial aspect of the project is the connection of communities from two countries whose cultural history is identical in relation to the African origin of music tradition. These communities will be brought to the partner universities and symposia with cultural carriers
will be held to enable knowledge transfer between communities in a South-South network and to
preserve and convey traditional knowledge. Musical practices will be examined as social phenomena in every geographical and ecological environment.
The approach pursued is transcultural, relying on the plurality of cultures and not on the authenticity of an absolute nation or a single cultural existence. The research goals are based on the recognition of the interdependencies of ecological, social, economic, and cultural sustainability. The project is oriented towards the idea that sustainable development is defined as an ordering principle for the compilation of human development goals, supporting natural resources as provided by ecosystem services. In cooperation with the Brazilian and Colombian partner universities, numerous symposia, seminars and excursions as well as the establishment and expansion of archives are planned.
The UNESCO Chair "Transcultural Music Studies" of the Franz Liszt University of Music Weimar coordinates this four-year research project.